Field
The innovations herein relate to a safety magazine, and more particularly, to a specialized follower and integrated/unitary magazine with such follower that prevent jams, i.e., when holding and feeding blank cartridges into the chamber of a firearm.
Description of Related Information
Firearms magazines have been developed for their intended caliber and cartridge length to be held in a specific arrangement and presented to the firearm chamber through various firearm receiver actions. Further, blank cartridges, which are a type of cartridge for a firearm that contains gunpowder but no bullet or shot, are commonly used for simulation in training (such as military or police training), signaling, or theatrical/movie special effects wherein a sound or flash is needed but a projectile would not be safe. In a military application, soldiers typically train using the same rifle magazine for firing live cartridges (such as in firing ranges) as they do for blank ammunition (such as in urban training). This dual usage results in two debilitating outcomes for military personnel.
First, during training exercises, the blank ammunition often “jams” causing the service rifle to malfunction. Unfortunately, this jamming is virtually inevitable when using the same rifle magazine for firing live cartridges as for blank ammunition as the standard-issue magazine was never designed to fire blank ammunition. As everyone in uniform knows, the much shorter blank ammunition cartridges simply do not feed properly from the standard magazine into the service rifle. As a result, realism is sacrificed and valuable training time is lost.
Second, dual usage eventually results in the unfortunate situation wherein live cartridges may become mixed with blank cartridges, thereby seriously hurting or killing soldiers or anyone else in the vicinity.
Currently, there are no magazines that accept only blank cartridges and prevent live cartridges from being loaded into the magazine, thereby preventing the aforementioned pitfalls of current firearm magazines.